That Patronage Report...

I was interested to read the report produced by the Forum on School Patronage. It's an engaging read and there's much of value in it.  I get the sense that most clergy are in favour of facilitating broader parent choice in terms of school patronage and ethos, in a way that respects the rights of local communities and of the Church.

However, in as much as it addressed the question of what denominational schools might look like I got the distinct sense that the report was written from a perspective that simply doesn't "get" the idea of religious faith.  Whilst our Catholic schools have a long tradition of educating and respecting the children of non-Catholic families, the suggestion that Catholic schools should display the emblems and symbols of other faiths alongside the crucifix or image of Our Lady crosses a line.  That's not the kind of concession that a religious person can in conscience make of someone of another faith.

Were I to receive hospital treatment in a Jewish hospital, I wouldn't be asking for crucifixes on the wall or a statue of the Madonna in the foyer. As long as I could pray my breviary and was treated with respect, I would be very grateful for the care received.

I was interested, therefore, to read today's article by Fr Eamonn Conway and Rik Van Nieuwenhove in the Examiner newspaper. As they succinctly put it, the report subscribes to a truncated understanding of what faith is.  By subscribing to a relativist rather than a pluralist view, the report essentially compromises the ability of any school - Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or Muslim - to maintain a religious ethos whilst admitting pupils of other faiths. 

The forum’s recommendation that the Catholic Church divest itself of some schools is welcome; this facilitates greater parental choice. What it recommends for schools that remain denominational, however, will effectively eradicate the rights of parents who want their children to have a faith-based education. 
The threat takes a number of forms. It calls for an end to rule 68 for national schools, which recognises religious instruction as a fundamental part of the school course and permits a religious spirit to "inform and vivify the whole work of the school". 
The forum is effectively requesting, even for faith-based schools, that no such spirit should characterise a denominational school. It specifically requests that religion be singled out to be taught as a discrete subject apart from the rest of the curriculum although all other subjects are to be taught in an integrated manner. 
Hymns and prayers are to be inclusive of the religious beliefs (and none) of all children. This recommendation would prohibit specific Christian prayer in a Christian school if there was even one atheist or, say, Muslim, enrolled. Similarly, the emblems of various religions are to be displayed and the feasts of different religions are to be celebrated without any allowance for a religious patron’s responsibility to uphold and foster its own specific ethos.

This question of Rule 68 is key.  The Catholic Bishops recognize that the rule could do with re-writing to take into account the existence of multidenominational  or non-religious schools and the like.  However, the deletion of rule 68 fails to recognise that for Catholics, our understanding of who Jesus Christ is lies at the heart of our educational efforts as we provide a rounded education to our co-religionists and to children of other faiths in our schools.  The ethos of our Catholic schools is established by law and reads as follows:

      A Roman Catholic School (which is established in connection with the Minister) aims at promoting the full and harmonious development of all aspects of the person of the pupil: intellectual, physical, cultural, moral and spiritual, including a living relationship with God and with other people. The school models and promotes a philosophy of life inspired by belief in God and in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Catholic school provides Religious education for the pupils in accordance with the doctrines, practices and tradition of the Roman Catholic Church and promotes the formation of the pupils in the Catholic Faith. 

With the removal of Rule 68, the education given is forcibly detached from this core vision and one has to ask in what sense a Catholic school can claim to be Catholic. The spirit or ethos of the school is truncated and the holistic vision of the human person and of education can no longer, of right, motivate the work of the school.  I have no doubt that other religious patronage bodies have similar concerns.

This seems to fly in the face of the principle of religious freedom and mistakes relativism for a healthy and genuine pluralism. Religious bodies can no longer direct their schools according to their own core beliefs.  This is not about the protection of or respect for minority faiths - rather, it's about putting forward the idea that it's no longer to actually believe or have real religious convictions.  It insults religious people and assumes that without the relativization of our own beliefs, we are unable to respect the beliefs of other believers.   

Do read all of the the article in the Examiner.  Beware also of the headlines surrounding this report - some of them give the misleading impression that the content of the report has met with an uncritical welcome from the Irish Bishops.  The Irish Independent makes clear that Fr Michael Drumm of the Catholic Schools Partnership has his reservations about the deletion of Rule 68 and the Iona Institute also make some valuable points.